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There are several reasons that may prompt a website owner to switch to another web host. They may be experiencing downtime, slow page loading, security or billing issues, or other issues that they attribute to the inefficiency of the web hosting company. It could just be all about the cost and maybe there’s a discount or promo offers from another web host that seems too tempting not to take advantage of. On the other hand, they may be foreseeing an expansion and they are doubting that their current provider will be able to accommodate their needs.

As long as the business has concluded that it will be more beneficial to them to switch to another web host, then by all means, they should do so. Most web hosts will help you move your website(s) from your old hosting account to your new account. All that is required is your old hosting account control panel login information or a full backup that they use to restore on your new hosting account. The follow issues are imminent when changing web hosts:

Moving to another web host may require some downtime. Talk with both your old and new hosting providers to figure out the best way to limit or prevent any downtime.

The transition may require some disruptions which visitors/customers might notice.

Some glitches may happen during the transition but these should be minimal if proper planning and testing is done. It helps if the new web host is reputable and has a responsive support staff.

These drawbacks should not cause the business owner to worry since they can be easily minimized or even avoided as long adequate planning is in place.

Beyond these considerations, website owners should do the following before moving to their new web host:

Business owners should regularly back-up their whole website. Something might happen while transferring to another web host and no one can be certain that everything will go smoothly. This may take a lot of time, especially to those who have to do the back-up task manually but it will certainly save the website and the business if something goes wrong.

To prevent frustration it is best to have all the pertinent information about the new web host such as DNS information, domain account details, temporary URL for testing the site, and server information on hand.

Taking these steps can contribute to a smoother transition from the old web host to the new one. However, no matter how things seem to go smoothly, it will still be best to retain the old account for a short period of time until the new web host can guarantee the web site’s smooth operation. Make sure everything is working correctly on your new hosting plan before you modify your nameservers to point to your new hosting account.

I prefer to use unique social media icons on my sites. The standard button designs do their job, but don’t stand out as much. You want to draw your reader’s eyes to the icons with something out of the ordinary to increase the changes of them giving your site some social media love. Here are a few cool collections that you can use for free on your websites or blogs.

If you want to earn money from your blog, you need to attract a constant supply of new readers who will return over and over to find out what you have to say. When you are first trying to build up this readership, the process can seem to completely take over your time. However, there is a hidden benefit to this effort. The more you work to build up an audience, you will find that promoting your website and attracting new readers becomes an almost automatic process. The more you consistently promote your blog, the greater the cumulative effect of your efforts, and the more money you make.

Here are four easy ways to promote your blog and attract readers:

1. Participate In Forums

Once you have some interesting content posted on your blog, participate on forums related to the topic of your blog. Join those communities, take some time to read through the material already posted there, and become familiar with the rules and customs. Once you have the “lay of the land”, start participating in the conversations. Include a signature line in your forum profile with an interesting blurb and a link to some content on your blog. The signature you create will appear below each post you make on a forum. Don’t simply use the name of your blog or even worse the blog URL as your signature. Consider using a link to your blog along with a line that inspires curiosity among the people interested in the subject matter of your blog. As your posts in the community build, so will your regular readership.

2. Get readers to sign up for an email list

A blog really starts to make money when you can get readers to come back to your blog again and again. The most basic key to this, of course, is creating quality content that they will want to read. However, getting readers to sign up to an email list to be notified about updates to your blog opens up a whole new world of promotional opportunities. You can use a free email notification service such as Google’s Feedburner which simply notifies all those who sign up about every update you make to your blog. However, this service does not let you email your list directly. For that you will need an email marketing or autoresponder service such as Aweber, Get Response, or MailChimp. There are many more to choose from and each has its own pluses and minuses. Some will let you sign up for free until the number of people on your mailing list becomes substantial. Many readers WANT to come back to read your blog, but they simply forget to check back for new content. When you are able to notify them about new content, you massively increase the chances they will return and become fans. Be very careful about emailing readers who signed up for blog content notifications about anything else. It can be done, but you must be very careful.

3. Create a Facebook Fan Page

Almost everyone these days is on Facebook. In fact, a huge percentage of the population signs in every day. This is an enormous opportunity for viral marketing. Viral marketing is simply the process of getting an ever expanding circle of friends to recommend your blog to their friends. If you create an exciting and informative Facebook Fan Page, you can draw a lot of traffic to your blog. Post your latest blog entries on your Facebook page and interact with your fans as much as possible.

4. Become a Twitter leader in your field

Twitter is an excellent way to promote your blog. You can easily find people interested in the subject matter of your blog by searching for keywords and topics on Twitter. Post helpful tweets sometimes mentioning your blog posts in order to gain readers as well as increase your number of Twitter followers.

These are only a few of literally thousands of potential ways to attract readers to your blog. Spend a little time each day promoting your blog and you will find yourself making money with a blog before you know it. Be creative and honest in your blog promotion efforts and your hard work will pay off in the end.

It is not difficult getting your website online. A website or a web page is summoned by a browser using the instructions that are there on the page. Every web page will have instructions in the HTML format. All the computers are connected to each other and communicate with each other using a common web protocol. This way each of the computers is assigned a number and this serves as its address. Web hosting and domains are integral parts of the web.

Let us see how this ‘getting your website online’ works from a customer’s point of view. For your web page to be online the hosting concern should make the bandwidth available to your site 24×7. The bandwidth should be adequate, meaning that if it is too little, the speed will be lacking. It will take forever for the page to load and another eternity for the applications to open. If you opt for a superior package you will get the services which are fast, reliable and provide a lot of perks in the form of applications and discounts.

The domain is the name that you use to identify your web space. You can change it around to any other place or make changes in the design whenever you want. You may even sell the domain to another person provided there is no previous condition preventing such a transaction from happening. A domain name is not necessary to start out, but it is highly recommended to increase trust and the overall success of your website.

Actually designing the website is the work of a web designer. He or she is the person who knows the right ingredients to use and the methodology of the web hosting. Certain potions of the web page will work better if it were coded in a different language or if certain type of codes were used. This is why we pay the designer a lot of money. They make sure that the page is presentable and the website functions smoothly.

Many web hosting companies will give you packaged deals which include multiple domains, unlimited bandwidth and unlimited storage. If you are just starting out you should use a shared hosting plan that usually costs between four – seven dollars per month. Shared hosting works well for beginners and novices a like and should have everything you will need to get started.

If and when your website grows in size and popularity upgrading to a virtual private server (VPS) or dedicated server is very common practice. If you already have a website and it’s having issues with loading speed, downtime, or other issues try to investigate into what is causing these problems. If you find out that it’s your web hosting plan and you are currently on a shared hosting environment consider the possibility that you might need to upgrade your hosting to the next level. Sometimes problems have nothing to due with the hosting environment and everything to due with the configuration/settings of your website, improper coding, or the use of bad scripts or plugins/add-ons. This is why it is very important to get to the root cause of your website’s issues so that you can fix them without any unnecessary costs or wasted time.

In the next post we’ll dive into domains deeper; searching for domain names, registering domains, and finding out information about domains that are already registered with a domain registrar.

To process of registering your domain name is not such a hard thing to do. First of all you need to do some research and in this way you will learn that there are two main types to do this lookup. Each of these ways comes as different means of achieving different goals. Therefore the lookup will evolve in accordance to your set goal.

The first type of domain name registration lookup is given by the actions of searching, researching and finding domain names that are available. This initiative will come with looking up the availability or a domain with a domain registrar or a web hosting company.Two of the most popular domains registrars are GoDaddy and NameCheap. With the use of a domain registrar you will be able to track the availability of a domain name, keywords and extensions (such as .net, .com, .org, etc.) available as well. Some of the above will also mention about the status of a specific domain name and will provide you variations of what you are looking for.

The second way comes with achieving the purpose of locating a domain name owner. This is also used for getting information about it. You can get informed on several aspects such as IP address, WHOIS information, web hosting company, registrar, expiration date, DNS settings, and so on. For this operation you should use sites such as DomainTools Whois, and so on. This information is well accessible whenever you are out there in search for domains. In case the domain name you have chosen is taken you will find in a small text box more information of the one who owns it or data related to Whois.

As you can see there are two different types of methods when it comes to ways of finding a domain name. One methods goes for locating the unregistered names which are of course new, and the other method goes for finding information on registered names that may be for sale or soon available. Both of them can be very helpful in getting what you need, so make use of each of them appropriately.

What qualities must be in evidence before you are seen as “professional”? Focus on those characteristics that are most important in your particular job and with your boss, rather than those making up some general list. Keep the organizational culture in mind as you consider this. This may dictate factors such as being respectful or ethical are important. To take a simple example, consider dress codes. You may work in an environment where a range of formality is acceptable; but you still need to decide where on such a scale you feel you should be seen to be.

You should be clear about what is right for you and to make analysis more manageable, it may help to see your list grouped into three categories:

Your inherent qualities: those that shine through and need no great attention (they may be an ongoing part of your work and always in evidence)

Qualities that do need acquiring or could use some strengthening (for example, if being a good communicator is important, maybe a useful first step might be to improve your report-writing style)

Qualities that can benefit from some exaggeration

This last-exaggeration-is a valid technique, but should not be overdone. In some professions extreme exaggeration is endemic; for instance, many an actor has rued the day they listed an ability to ride a horse or motorcycle on their resume, and has the bruises to remind them.

Making people aware of how you operate and what you have to offer is an active process.

Three additional points may be useful:

Firstly, one caveat: do not overdo things here. You do not want a reputation for being unpleasantly “pushy”. But this is not what is meant here. For example, you might decide that being seen as someone who gives attention to detail is important (maybe with certain people or projects). The way to do this, or anything else for that matter, is not to say so, it is to show it. If this goes beyond your natural tendencies then you may need to enhance the ability and exaggerate it somewhat.

Secondly, you might also list and work on characteristics that you should avoid and be seen not to embrace. For example, few managers appreciate time-wasters, whingers or people who spend half their office life engaged in office politics or conducting private business on the Internet.

Lastly, explaining what you are doing may avoid negative impressions or enhance positive ones. For example, you might be noted as, wasting time on the Internet or you might explain that you are using your lunchtime to do some research (valid research, that is; the internet contains many unsuitable distractions-some of which have cost people their jobs)